My Partner Risked My Life to Impress His Mistress

I gave up the front seat without being asked.

Not exactly. Liam asked — but the way he asked made it clear there was only one acceptable answer. He leaned close while the others were loading bags into the SUV, his voice low and careful, the way it got when he needed something and didn't want to call it a favor.

'Alitzel should probably ride up front. For the deal. You understand.'

I understood.

I moved to the back without a word. He didn't thank me. He was already turning toward Maximo Salazar, hand extended, smile wide, the version of Liam that existed only when someone useful was watching.

I settled into the window seat and watched the Catskills rise around us as we left the city behind. The trees thickened. The light changed. I pressed my shoulder against the door and let the cold glass touch my cheek.

Alitzel Salazar twisted in the front seat within the first ten minutes.

She had the kind of beauty that knew exactly what it was doing — sharp cheekbones, a silk blouse the color of cream, hair that fell in the specific way that costs a lot of money to look effortless. She looked at me the way someone looks at a piece of furniture they're deciding whether to keep.

'I love that jacket,' she said. The smile didn't reach her eyes. 'Very — what's the word — understated.'

Liam laughed. A short, easy sound.

I looked out the window.

'No, I mean it,' Alitzel continued, turning back to face the road but pitching her voice to carry. 'There's something so refreshing about a girl who doesn't try too hard. Not everyone needs labels, right? It's almost brave.'

The trees blurred past. Spruce and birch and the occasional flash of granite through the green.

I had been doing this for five years. The math was simple: Liam needed this deal. The Salazar family's construction portfolio was the foothold his startup had been chasing for eighteen months. Alitzel was Maximo's daughter and his most reliable social ambassador. Whatever she needed to feel — superior, unchallenged, the most interesting woman in the car — I could give her that. It cost me nothing I hadn't already learned to live without.

That's what I told myself.

The resort appeared through the trees like something from a magazine — stone and timber and wide glass windows catching the afternoon light. We unloaded. Liam walked ahead with Maximo and Alitzel, already deep in conversation about square footage and zoning projections. I carried my own bag.

---

The trail was Alitzel's idea.

A cliffside path that looped behind the resort, she said. Scenic. The kind of thing you do at a mountain retreat to prove you're the kind of person who does things at mountain retreats. Liam agreed immediately. I followed because I was still, technically, there.

The path was narrow and the stone was older than the resort's brochure suggested. I noticed the way the trail edge